East to West Yogi

In the East, many yogis were sanyasis (renunciates). They dropped out of householder life, gave up a material or financial productivity, in order to focus on their spiritual development. Others were monks who followed a similar pattern in principle.

In the Western world, however, while yogis and magicians did at times become hermits, many continued to maintain what would be called a “householder” life. They maintained material productivity and financial engagement with the market through trade of goods and services.

Why is this important? Why does this matter? And what does this mean for you?

Let me elucidate by exploring a few lines of thinking which will converge on a profound point.

First off all, there are significant differences between Eastern and Western cultures. And these differences are not just surface level differences, but are fundamental differences. And precisely because of these differences, these two cultures are not of equal value… One is objectively better than the other.

The best way to start discussing this is an example from a talk which mentions that when Westerners are asked to draw themselves and their family on a piece of paper, they tend to draw circles that are separated and distinct. Whereas in the East, they draw circles that are intersecting.

This makes sense. Western culture, hearkens back to Ancient Greece and emerges from independent homesteads, who invented concepts like democracy, private property and self-governence. These were further developed during the European Enlightenment which saw the emergence of the sovereign individual.

And yes, Eastern culture, is not a monolithic entity. Chinese is different than Indian than different than Arab. Yet, for this discussion, we can lump all these cultures together under the umbrella of “Eastern”, because every culture other than Western culture lacks this spirit of individualism which the Greeks initiated.

In Eastern culture, we see that society, authority and culture has power and prominence, not the individual. The emphasis is on community, society and the collective over the preferences and the will of the individual.

Eastern culture, in this sense, is ruled more by the Tribal Impetus, while Western culture has been touched by the Promethean Fire.

This root idea manifests itself through a variety of ways…

For instance, in the East we see greater authoritarianism and the emergence of more rigid hierarchies. We see more clearly defined pecking orders. We witness a lack of social mobility. In fact, it is not uncommon to see seven generations of sons laboring at the same spot in India. We also notice arranged marriages, as well as many generations living under the same roof. Individuals don’t really marry, families do…

Perhaps the most profound of these differences relate to a lack of the notion of privacy; for instance parents will enter a kid’s room without knocking on doors, even when the kid is lucky to have a room with a door! (This is profound because privacy and individualism are inextricably linked; without privacy, which contains the concept of private property, individualism cannot flourish)

Now… On the one hand, these differences are cultural. On the other hand, they are material and financial. In fact, they are both:

It’s easy to have a family of independent circles, when you live in a five bedroom house with a big grass yard protected by a tall, white picket fence. It’s practically impossible to do that, when the entire family lives in a 50 square foot room – their circles intersect because they literally live on top of one another!

Of course, on average, the lack of individuation persists due to cultural brainwashing even when Easterners are wealthy. And, of course, on average, even poor Westerners draw boundaries around one another and keep each other at an arm’s length when they live in a tiny trailer.

This is where it gets very interesting because, while the financial lacks exasperate the lack of individualism in the East, those financial lacks are also manifestations of the culture of collectivism. This becomes apparent when we analyze the two evolutionary steps Western culture has gone through to transmute it’s tribal paradigm into the paradigm of individualism.

First step: progress from communal, tribal, and co-dependent relationships of material production to personal, private and independent relationships of material production, which includes the innovation called private corporation (invented about 300 years ago). This latter, private mode of production has an advantage over the former collective one, because it creates greater prosperity. And it does so precisely because working for yourself and your selfish benefit is much more psychologically powerful than working for your tribe or your lord.

Second step: capitalize on the critical mass of prosperity and freedom accumulated through these periods of private production (i.e. not the dark ages, but Ancient Greece, some Roman, and Modern times), in such a way that you change your culture and cement the idea of individualism through the Enlightenment.

Basically, it’s a virtuous cycle: Production that embraces individualism is more productive and makes you richer. The richer you become through individualism rather than collectivism, the more individualism you pump into your culture. That’s what the West did.

Conversely, production in tribalism is less productive and makes you poorer. And the poorer you are, the more co-dependent you become, entrenching your culture in the ideas of collectivism. It’s a downward spiral. That’s what the East is still fundamentally doing (yes they emulate Western capital systems, but the common man on the ground still lives in tribal prisons and patterns of indoctrination).

Here’s why this matters: As a result of these tremendous cultural differences, work, as well as household life, has a completely different experiential mode in the West than in the East.

In the West, especially the modern West, you can maintain your individuality and do your own thing while holding a job, getting married, having kids and what not. In fact, you are expected and encouraged to do so – you are encouraged to “be your own person”.

In the East, this is neither encouraged, nor is it possible for the average person. From employers asking to see your picture, and your martial status on your resumes in India, to the paper thin walls in the tiny homes of Japan where nosy mother in laws never mind their own business; it’s not really possible to “be your own person”. You are forced to become your assigned person in your community, not do your own thing.

(By the way, I have lived in both Eastern and Western cultures about roughly equal number of decades, so I know what I’m talking about, not only at a psychological and sociological level, but also at an experiential level. This isn’t conjecture…)

Now… Why does this matter, and what does this have anything to do with yoga? Well… Because of the nature of Eastern culture, dropping out was the only feasible pattern for individuation – which is exactly what the yogis did.

In other words: The sanyasi pattern of yogis who live on alms and don’t engage with the market is not a desirable pattern but a necessary one.

And a Western yogi would, and does, delight in the idea of engaging with the free market. “A fair exchange is no robbery!”

Unfortunately, due to the insipid communist propaganda in modern culture, and the tribal stupidity of the hippy movement; both the sanyasi pattern of Eastern yogis as well as the communal pattern of Eastern people are idealized and romanticized.

Some even think that sanyas is freedom, which is quite ironic: there is nothing free about begging for food… The freedom of the yogi comes from yoga, not the wretched conditions they had to endure.

Others confuse the sanyas pattern for a higher, and more spiritual mode of yogic existence. They think of it as the pure form of yoga, and even look at “householders” as “not so serious” wannabes rather than sincere or dedicated yogis.

And even others consider sanyas as a necessary “sacrifice“, or a “trade” for something higher: the price of admission into the club of initiation, so to say.

The reality is much less romantic and rational: Eastern culture is incestuously intrusive, while yoga is deeply personal, private and individual. Yogis escaped their rotten culture, that’s all.

Of course, I’m not discrediting other considerations such as the time demand of yogic practices, or the karmic considerations. Yes, yogic and tantric practices take a lot of time, the type of time that a subsistence farmer cannot afford, but a Western professional can, precisely because the Western professional can create sufficient value in the market to sustain themselves without toiling every waking moment.

And yes, the karmic tapestry of family and tribal life is wretched, where your relations pull you down like crabs keeping each other in their bucket, allegedly across multiple lifetimes. Without sanyas, there would be no independence or relative freedom for the yogi, but then again, a Western professional can enjoy greater independence, freedom and privacy if they structure their life wisely.

Make no mistake: Having a job or a business, being able to create value and trade it with others for money, and using it according to your individual goals, desires and tastes is a profound blessing.

Being able to do that in a private manner where family, rulers and culture don’t stick their nose in everything you do is a hilarious blessing (hilarious means it’s so funny that it makes one go insane, in this case, insane through delight).

Forget the sordid world of the past, and the unfortunate patterns our spiritual ancestors had to endure in order to transmit the spark of initiation. They did what they had to, so that you don’t have to do what you don’t need to, and dare I say, want to…

More importantly, THINK for yourself!

Don’t get sucked into patterns of behavior, without understanding their actual structure, as well as the real reasons for their existence. Things are often not what they seem.

And mark my words: Yoga culture will end in the East. This is because Eastern culture is gaining financial power before going through the paradigm transformation from tribalism to the sovereign individual. A poor tribal culture is something you can escape. A wealthy tribal culture becomes totalitarian – which we already see in China with the social credit and in India with the Aadhar systems.

Such totalitarian cultures do not have the fertile ground for yoga to flourish. Of course, those with the right karmas, and the application of Will, will always attain, regardless of the wretched status of their birth. But at a cultural level, the real yoga will perish in the East and it will be replaced with feel good tourist seminars and superstitious morality cults.

In the West, however, Real Yoga is just beginning to take root, and it’s spark has the capability to go on forever, if the eagle takes flight among the stars…